Tag: Woods

It was 1963 and I was seven. We had moved to the suburbs from the city as so many did but I was just a little over four then.

I swear I can remember walking down the street we would be moving to and looking at the few homes that were already up for buyers to pick from.

We went up to the house on the hill and it had a HUGE frog inside we wanted THAT HOUSE, me and my little brother.

Mom and Dad decided up by the busy road was not the house for us so we were going to live in the first house as you started down the dead-end road. It was a dirt road still with 4 homes ready for families and we got number ONE!

The woods behind the house were off-limits to a 4-year-old and a two-year old and Mom was going to have number 3 soon, so she could not run after us.

I guess I was about seven when I first ventured into those woods, behind our family home,. There a stream that ran alongside our property out in the forest. Mom took us three out to pick wild Blueberries. High bush type so she picked the most and we carried the containers. It was so beautiful out back I never wanted to go back to the house.

Mom still lives in that home and when we lost Dad eight years ago to Cancer, I found out that when he was not there I didn’t want to be either, just wasn’t the same but I did go back because Mom is there and I once again stepped back into those woods and began to cut back the growth on the other side of her fenced property. See they had fenced it off to keep us in. Scary things can happen to children in the woods all alone, though somehow we never quite believed them. Boy that huge forest I remember so fondly as a little girl is really just a silly half-acre but it used to be HUGE!

I remember a day so long ago , running back to the house with an armful of Lady Slippers for Mom, oh how I loved these blooms that loved the dark, damp wooded areas. She saw how pretty they were but insisted I should NEVER pick them again as I would be ARRESTED! They had a law for that, can you imagine being so young and loving the woods as I did and being told to be good. My poor Mom had her hands full!

So yes I love the country as it is truly a part of me. I never pick the flowers instead I grow so many in my yard as I can and capture all the wild ones with a camera.

I never wear shoes from spring to fall ( well unless I leave the yard) just like when I was seven boy did that make Mom mad, she said it made her look like a BAD MOM.. I say it made her look like a Mom who loved to see her kids happy and free to experience all the wonders of the world, well until I stepped on that bee!

So my home here in New England has a stream for one side of my property line too and tons of deep woods( over a couple hundred acres) with many wildflowers and insects , wildlife too.

The city is Grand don’t get me wrong. I spent 27 years driving a big rig through each of our nations cities. Eighty feet long and at times longer and did it like it was second nature to me but come the end of a trip or the end of a sixteen hour day it was back to the woods for me, as I have always adored nature it seems, well for the last 50 years to be certain.

Here is my piece of the forest , well this year maybe closer to a JUNGLE with all this rain

Well they had another draw down at the lake and you can see more of the islands show up, as well as the shoreline.

Come to find out it is the association here that wants to release so much water, so that they can leave their docks in the water all winter.

My yard is one of many taking it all so they can keep doing what they want. This will now become a push and shove deal and I will fight for my land, as this is MY HOME not a SUMMER COTTAGE.

Absolutely insane to be drawn down so much, that water is eight feet below where it runs normally.

I thought all of this was being done with a few boards, was I ever surprised to see what is behind my house, hidden in the woods and should it fail, as dams did in Katrina, we will be dead in minuets. I will show you what has been destroying my beautiful landscape, year after year, in a few days, if I can get any sleep now.

Our day started very early. Up before the sun. All we had left to do was drive to the special spot and start prospecting for gold. He took the dredge and shovel and 4 buckets. I brought my dog(lol)camera of course)and something for the small propane camping stove. What a Beautiful day it was. We will never forget we had the river to ourselves. Just the hum of a dredge running on a pretty day. While it sucked up what he placed in front of his nozzle, and then up the hose and through the triple sluice box, it held different sizes of GOLD on each level and flushed out the junk(plain rocks,lol) I am going to try to take you through this pretty day along a pretty spot in the river. Maybe you will catch the FEVER, lol Gold Fever.

This is just a two and half in. dredge. This will move small rocks and packed gravel and place it back into the stream for fish to pick through for food and a place for some to lay eggs. We clean out all the lead, from the area he is working in. At the end of the day the place is clean of metal,lead and hopefully GOLD.

The hose is 2 1/2 in. in diameter so we do not take home boulders, or destroy the land we play in, we just enjoy the openness of this river and how it changes month by month. With ever passing storm that brings heavy rains, these boulders roll along and Gold collects in certain spots. It has been since the beginning of time. We just have more ways to search for it than a beaten up pie pan as the 49ers did.

Now that I showed you his equipment let me show you this beautiful spot in Maine.

See that big rock formation it is called Bedrock. It is what we want to see a lot of.

The boulders above are what rolls down the river and eventually flattens out the GOLD into flakes and pickers, we still search for the NUGGETS though, down against bedrock that has been covered for hundreds of years or more.

A tiny feeder brook dumps in to this main river. I comes from a mountain stream high above, which has been filled with winter run off(SNOW) I love following these streams up through the woods with a camera and a gold pan.

\

Also you know she will be beside us on our journey. He she is tired from so much play. She spent most of the day in the water and loved her day as much as we did. Life is good for two cripples. We take lots of breaks to take in the beauty and rest our injured parts. He feels good in his wet suit sitting in the river but he will pay for days after we get home. I will too from the driving and walking but we need to do something or this is no reason to be here.

On this first day of July we found hundreds of assorted butterflies that spent the day with us, this one spent enough time on our shovel for me to get a few photos to share.